Damn.Tomorrow is Fat Tuesday and I don't have anything ready for dinner yet. There will be a Sazerac, true enough, but I have not found any oysters for the duck and oyster gumbo I had planned, and even if I did it's likely I wouldn't have time enough to cook it after work anyway. I got a good shrimp and grits recipe that doesn't take too long, maybe I can pull that off.
Anthony Bourdain visited New Orleans on No Reservations tonight. Good episode--I almost got up from my chair, drink in hand, and started cooking a roux just to get in the spirit of things. There's a certain shade of rich brown that some of the most delicious foods and sauces have down there, and the camera work was good enough I could practically smell it. He had Chris Rose, author of One Dead in Attic, on the show, and I started salivating when they went to some neighborhood dive for some po-boy sandwiches and Abita beer.
What got me, in the midst of my drinking and salivating and looking forward to our trip in March, was that in the intro to some footage of the Lower 9th ward, the camera passed over some writing on the side of an abandoned church. When I was down there with Splotchy last year, I took this picture of that same writing, and it was jarring to see it on the television a year later--it's still there, devastated, defiant and unchanged:
I loved the end of the show, when Anthony basically called on his viewers to get down to New Orleans; whether he meant to rebuild with hammers and nails or by supporting the restaurant and hospitality industry is, I think, left to the viewer.
Well, that's it for tonight folks. God bless you all.
12 comments:
Our govt sure let those folks for dead, didn't they?
Now I want to go to the Big Easy and have some gumbo and a beer. But I'm not a big crowds person, so while others are tossing beads and coins around, I'll find a good restaurant with a great balcony.
Have a Sazerac for me!
I'll see if I can locate an Abita.
Now I'm too hungry for a mere panczki . . . a thousand calories or no . . . is it time for that drink yet?
Today you get to begin the process of voting the bastards out who are responsible for this criminal behavior. Now that's something to celebrate!
Aren't you supposed to eat pancakes today? Except I forgot and planned for chicken fajitas, which is close because the tortillas are flat.
I'm too busy to really cook anything decent, how about I just open up a beer to celebrate?
Invite me over when you cook that stuff.
I liked the sound of shrimp and grits. I had it for the first time at math conference in central GA last October. This yankee loves grits.
sazerac... good.
shrimp... good.
grits... good.
new orleans.... very good.
Now I just want to go back again. And again. And again......
Dcup, I'm making two trips down there this year--a family vacation in March, and then a Habitat for Humanity building trip some time during mid or late summer.
Fran, thanks for stopping by! The shrimp and grits came out amazingly good, I must say.
Mathman, you've never had them together? It's a great and simple recipe. Just make baked garlic cheese grits, and here's the shrimp part:
melt 1/2 stick of butter and half a finely chopped onion in a skillet until the onion is soft
Add 1 pound peeled/deveined shrimp, 1 tbsp of herbes de provence and 1 tbsp of Tony Chacere's creole seasoning, and cook until the shrimp is done, then spoon the buttery mess over a serving of grits.
Dr MVM, gladly. Any time you head north, my man. What's your campaign schedule look like?
Skylersdad, always an acceptable alternative!
Barbara, not that I know of, but any day is good for pancakes.
Ten, you bet!
Erik, panczke is a great start though!
Splotchy, will do!
Mn, what our government (not our people, because thousands and thousands of good Americans went there to help) did was sinful. If you haven't been there, I wouldn't go for Mardi Gras. If you ever want some travel advice for visiting there, lemme know?
The very same day I caught this on the Travel Channel, I was left pondering why Senator Spinchter was wasting his time going after the Patriots for something that happened over five years ago.
New Orleans is nowhere near where it should be in terms of being rebuilt and he'd rather use his pulpit to go after something that may or may not have happened some time ago.
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